


window over your heart, painted shut

by subjunctive



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, F/M, Jon Brings Home an Oops Baby from the War, Kid Fic, POV Jon, inspired by possible season 7 spoilers, past Daenerys/Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8437084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/pseuds/subjunctive
Summary: Finally, when the Free Folk have been settled again beyond the debris, then and only then does Jon turn toward home. It is a destination he aches for and dreads in equal measure, for at the end of it is his son, and Sansa.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a revised version of a tumblr fic I wrote for Jonsa Week, for Day 1: Children. This is about 700 words longer and a few minor things have been changed.
> 
> The title is adapted from Richard Siken's "Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out."

The road to from the Wall to Winterfell feels far longer returning than it did leaving. Jon has stayed behind with a few of the men and sent the rest away, to go back to their homes and hunker down for the rest of the winter.

With the remaining men he lights fires and funeral pyres all along what is left of the Wall, now but a pile of crushed ice and stone and bones. The Night’s King is gone, but in this Jon is grimly determined to see the whole task through, by himself if necessary. The more generous of his men, those who have been with him the longest, call it mourning. It is, in a way. His wife had been on one of those pyres, her flesh as vulnerable as any other's in death. He’d wept to see it, had thought at the time it was an omen of their doom.

Finally, when the Free Folk have been settled again beyond the debris, then and only then does Jon turn toward home. It is a destination he aches for and dreads in equal measure, for at the end of it is his son, and Sansa.

He has not seen her in near two years’ turn, not since their farewell, when she surprised him with a fierce kiss and cupped his jaw and made him promise to return to her.

It was the only time they’d kissed; he’d had no idea of her regard before that. She'd hid it well, under her wool dresses and careful courtesies. It made him wonder what else he had missed about her. He had thought of that kiss many times when he was away. In the first few months, it was a source of solace, a memory to unfold and turn over and over in his mind until it was as worn as a old love letter, cherished and faded. Something to look forward to, when the prospect of return was still fresh, before hope seemed a liability. Later, it was only a source of guilt.

The air of return to Winterfell is too exhausted to be triumphant, but there is still relief in it. Jon’s own return is more cautious. As the Stark in Winterfell, Sansa was surely there to greet the soldiers and make arrangements for their stay, but Jon is pulling up the rear of this last company, and by the time he reaches the Great Hall, she is gone. By design, perhaps. It is not an auspicious beginning.

It’s nearly nightfall, and while part of him would like nothing more than to collapse into the nearest bed and not rise for days, putting off what he knows will be a painful conversation, he knows this is not a meeting that can be put off. It’s his duty.

There’s been no contact between them since Jon sent his infant son to her accompanied by Brienne, Ghost, and a dry, brief letter of explanation that surely did nothing to improve her thoughts of him. He did not know whether she’d heard of his marriage before he told her of it, for she had not responded then or since.

Jon tells Brienne to let Sansa know he is coming and has a bath drawn. He can justify it by saying Sansa would surely prefer him washed before he enters her chambers, but he knows better. What he does not know is whether looking fit to be a king will make things easier or more difficult.

The hot bath is a balm to his battered body, but Jon hardly notices. Instead he scrubs himself down as well as he can manage and, when he is clean, slips into Ghost’s head to see what lies in store for him.

Ghost is lying in front of the fire in what he immediately recognizes as Sansa’s chambers. Her touch is everywhere: in the little tokens that decorate the shelves, in the lacy cover of her night table, which he watched her make, and in the false cloth flowers by the window, presaging the spring they are waiting for.

There is a voice behind him, singing. Jon turns.

Sansa is sitting on her bed in her nightrail, with her knees drawn up and her hands busy with something he can’t see in her lap. Ghost can smell the lavender she puts in her bath soap, a pleasant flowery scent that permeates her rooms. The last time Jon had smelled it, it was when they’d said goodbye, when she’d kissed him and made him promise to return and he’d buried his face in her hair and swore it.

He’d made her no other promises, not of marriage or of anything else, and she’d asked for none. He’d kept his only vow to her. Only it seems that excuses that made fine sense on the battlefield, that he’d told himself to keep the miserable guilt from eating him up, falter at the sight of her face.

She is singing, a nonsense lullaby that sounds vaguely familiar, as if it is from a different life. Her voice is huskier than it was as a child. A baby’s burble answers it, and Sansa stops to laugh in response.

She has Aemon with her, he realizes. The babe is lying back against her thighs, his little feet pressed to her belly, their hands occupied by some game that seems to have no rules but which delights them both.

Jon has only held his boy once, just after he was born, still red-faced and crying, and then sent him away. The battlefield is no place for a babe, and he knows he made the right decision, but he has been a constant splinter in Jon’s heart since, digging ever deeper, deeper than Sansa herself, though she was not so far from his thoughts, or Daenerys’s death and all its accompanying guilt. Trotting to Sansa’s side and nuzzling his son’s foot with a wolf’s nose eases the ache only a little.

He lets himself enjoy the scratch she gives Ghost behind his ears, too; it is likely to be his warmest reception. For a little while, there is nothing to think about, except _home_ and _family_ and _love_ , and the crackling fire, and the end of the fighting, and the beginning of what he was fighting for.

The moment is interrupted by a knock at the door, calling Jon back to himself, reminding him that he is no animal with only simple pleasures to think of, but a man with responsibilities to carry out.

“Yes?” Sansa calls.

It’s Brienne, bearing his own message. “The King has returned.”

“Yes, I know.” There’s a tremble in her voice, though he knows not what emotion it portends.

“He would like to meet with you tonight. Now,” Brienne says, formal but apologetic, casting an eye over Sansa’s state of undress. Meant to deter unwanted visitors, no doubt, giving her an excuse to delay. “He was quite insistent. Shall I tell him you’re already asleep?”

Sansa is silent for a moment, then sighs. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”

“Shall I call for the prince’s nursemaid?” Brienne offers, but Sansa declines.

“He’s almost asleep yet, but the King will want to see his son, I think.” He doesn’t like the careful courtesy with which she pronounces his title.

When Brienne closes her door, Sansa draws the tip of her finger down his son’s forehead, over his nose, tapping his chin. “What do you say, Aemon?” she murmurs. “Would the little prince like to meet his father?”

The last clench of fear eases its grip on Jon’s heart for good. Sansa might hate Jon, might be cold or angry with the man who rejected her in a camp tent with another woman and then married her when she fell pregnant, but there is no sign of that on her face or in her voice when she speaks to his son. She calls him by name. Her lady mother called Jon by name only once, and not for a kindness.

Jon opens his eyes in his own body, to bathwater gone tepid and aching muscles. With a groan, he forces himself out, dresses, and makes for Sansa’s chambers.

She is waiting for him in her solar, fully dressed again, every inch the lady she is, the lady her mother was. He didn’t understand until later how her dresses and her elaborate hairstyles and courtesies were both armor and weapons. Jon shoves aside his disappointment, his irrational desire to climb into bed with them, or bury his face in Sansa’s lap and hear her sing them to sleep, or gather them both into his arms. Whatever they might have had, he reminds himself, the moment for it is long past.

Daenerys will never see her son like this. He pushes away that thought, too.

Sansa rises from her chair, Aemon tucked over her hip. She inclines her head to him. “It’s good to see you well, Your Grace.”

That’s how it’s to be, then. He knew better than to hope for warmth, though it seems he did anyway. His fool heart.

“I don’t know about well,” he says, scrubbing his face. He’s sure exhaustion laces his every move, but he eyes the bundle at her side hungrily, and Sansa notices.

When she hands over his son, he moves to cup the back of the babe’s head carefully, the way Sam had shown him after his birth, but Sansa says, “He has quite a strong neck now. He’s close to seven months, isn’t he?”

Seven months, gods be good. He’s not sure if that seems far too long, for it seems only yesterday Daenerys was screaming in the birthing tent, or not nearly long enough to describe the gap that lays between them, full of seemingly endless battles and a hasty marriage and death, so much death.

He has no idea what to do with his son, he realizes, but it doesn’t matter. The boy is clearly tired; he gurgles against Jon’s chest, small hands patting him with indifferent curiosity. Jon tucks an arm under the boy’s bottom. He seems as fragile as he did on the day he was born, no matter his advanced age. Jon has a sudden vision of dropping him and presses his other hand against his son’s back, holding him close.

“Thank you,” Jon murmurs, not quite able to raise his eyes to hers. It’s a wholly inadequate thing to say.

“You’re welcome." It's all perfectly polite. She looks at Aemon for a long few moments before deliberately cutting her gaze away, running her hands down her bodice as if she doesn’t know what to do with herself. He recognizes that look, the self-denial in it. It's the look of someone who wants something she knows she cannot have.

“There were many conflicting reports from the men,” she says.

Jon is too tired for niceties. “Daenerys is dead, and all her dragons.”

She nods, unsurprised. “I’m sorry.” A moment of hesitation. “Tyrion?”

“Him too.” _The dragon must have three heads._ But theirs were better than his; would that either of them had survived in his place.

Sansa's forehead creases. There is no love lost between her and the late Lannister lord, but the gesture is unfeigned.

“You’ll take Aemon to King’s Landing,” she says.

“Aye. Not straight away, but soon.”

Her next words come quietly. “Lady Brienne called you the King.”

“Daenerys legitimized me before we wed. If it were up to me, I’d rather stay in the North, but . . .”

Sansa nods. “There’s no one else.”

No, an empty, kingless throne would mean only endless wars between the southron kingdoms, constant disorganization and tension. It’s no way for the kingdoms to survive the winter, and Jon means for them all to see the spring.

The babe is a pleasant warm weight against his chest, and he’s surprised to find his arm aching a little already. But nothing could compel him to put the child down. It is a discovery both sweet and frightening, that the muscles needed to wield a sword are not the ones needed to hold a child, or raise one. Not the ones needed to rule a kingdom, either, he thinks.

“King’s Landing is a viper’s nest,” Sansa continues thoughtfully, though he can hear the thread of fear winding through her words. “Tyrion would have served you well, but the others . . . Ser Davos is the Hand, yes? Who else are you taking with you?”

The time for casual pleasantries is over; he braces himself for what's to come. “Brienne for the Kingsguard, if you’ll release her. Sam, of course, thought he’ll go on to the Citadel to finish his chain before returning. What’s left of Daenerys’s retinue, for Aemon’s sake. And you, if you please.”

Sansa does not reply immediately, but the infinitesimal widening of her eyes and the part of her lips spell her surprise. She recovers quickly, though. “As your family. For Aemon.”

“As family for Aemon,” he agrees. “As an adviser for me--you know the viper’s nest better than anyone else I trust.” He pauses. He doesn’t have to continue; he’s given her reason enough. But he has to say it, if only to get it out of the way so as not to regret the omission later. “And as my wife, if you’ll have me.”

Her gaze skitters away from his, and the rise and fall of her chest grows more rapid. She might be angry or excited or afraid--it’s impossible to tell.

“Your wife,” she repeats.

“If you like. You don’t have to, if you prefer. I’d like you there regardless, and you needn’t give me an answer now, either. But it would be good to have the queen consort position secured before moving further south.” It’s an embarrassingly pragmatic proposal, one the Sansa he remembers from childhood would have balked at, refused, cried over in bitter disappointment.

This Sansa merely worries her lip. “Winterfell . . .”

“Arya will help Bran hold it, and he and Meera will have their babe soon.”

Sansa goes to stand in front of the fire, turning her back to him. A calculated gesture, no doubt. But whatever her strong feeling, he is glad of it, glad to see a spark of something other than her chilly distance.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” she says over her shoulder.

Jon swallows. “I don’t have any illusions about . . . I’m not asking you to love me.” He’s cruel to ask her to return to King’s Landing, perhaps, to return to the location of her nightmares, to take the place of the dead woman he left her waiting for--but that would be a bridge too far.

“I didn’t ask for it, either,” she bursts out. “While you were gone. Even after I’d heard you married her. I never asked the gods for what was hers--not you or Aemon or her crown, or even for Tyrion to--” She stills. “I want you to know.”

“I believe you.” Jon comes to her side and, cradling Aemon carefully, takes her hand with his free one. It’s far too forward a gesture, much too presumptuous, but she doesn’t pull away. The movement jostles the baby awake, and he makes a plaintive sound, punctuating Jon’s words.

Sansa’s eyes dart down to his son, and she presses a kiss to his forehead. Whatever she’s thinking, it’s disguised among the child’s dark soft curls.

“What was Daenerys like?” she asks when she draws back.

It’s not at all the reply he expects; he answers without thinking. “She was fierce. Lovely. Determined. To a fault, perhaps. She would have made a good queen, I think, and a fine mother. She loved Aemon very much. She didn’t think she could . . . well, he was very precious to her.”

Such a confession might put off another woman, but Sansa only nods. “We’ll tell him all about his mother. I’ll help you,” she murmurs, touching Aemon’s cheek, and something fierce and hot wells up in Jon’s chest. He wants to gather her to him, but even the smallest movement might break the fragile peace they’ve negotiated.

“We’ll help each other,” he promises instead, and gods be good, he hopes it’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi on Tumblr](http://subjunctivemood.tumblr.com) and cry about Jon/Sansa with me. I even have [a tag specifically for fic that's just on Tumblr](http://subjunctivemood.tumblr.com/tagged/tumblr-fic).


End file.
